One area of automotive vehicle technology that is evolving rapidly is the area of autonomous or semi-autonomous drive capabilities. This is enabled through the introduction of sensors, for sensing vehicle parameters and surroundings, and actuators, for controlling different vehicle functionalities, such as steering, throttling and braking. Increased on-board data processing capabilities ties together these sensors and actuators such that the autonomous or semi-autonomous drive capabilities are enabled.
One area where these autonomous or semi-autonomous drive capabilities are envisaged to be of significant use in the near future is the area of vehicle parking.
Currently, as a vehicle driver arrives at a desired destination, he/she will often have to spend a significant amount of time searching for an unoccupied parking slot, which sometimes, when found, turns out to be located at a substantial distance from the actual destination. This distance may be an inconvenience to the driver both in that it will take some time to walk to the desired destination and in that the driver most likely also will be exposed to any adverse weather that might occur, such as rainstorms. Conversely, as the vehicle driver desires to leave the destination, he/she will have to perform the same walk in the opposite direction.
Today, parking services, such as valet parking services, for parking a vehicle at a premise, such as a hotel, a restaurant, an apartment building, a department store, a business center or a business building, etc., are sometimes provided in order to reduce such inconvenience to vehicle drivers. Valet parking is usually provided in a form in which a valet parking assistant is handed the keys to the vehicle and thereafter directly parks the vehicle in place of a vehicle driver. In this way inconvenience to the vehicle driver is reduced when requiring parking of the vehicle at a desired destination. Conversely, as the vehicle driver desires to leave the premises, he/she consults a valet desk and request retrieval of the vehicle and then waits for the vehicle to be retrieved by a valet parking assistant. Once the vehicle has been retrieved it is handed over to the driver who then may drive away to a subsequent destination.
In the near future, as more vehicles are fitted with autonomous drive capabilities, auto parking is likely to be introduced to vehicle drivers. Such service will include both autonomous driving that drives a vehicle to a final slot within a parking lot in an unmanned manner, and autonomous parking that enables the vehicle to be parked in the final slot in an unmanned manner. The need for the driver to walk from a parking lot to the premise he/she desires to visit may thus be eliminated. As a consequence, the parking may also be located much further from the desired destination when auto parking is available. This may be particularly useful at inner city locations where space for parking is limited.
However, as autonomous parking and retrieval of the vehicle may involve unknown and sometimes significantly greater distances the pick-up time may become quite long and above all inestimable to a current vehicle driver.